The presentation primarily focused on Puerto Rican governing and resistance and the ways in which local organizations have supplied the Puerto Rican people with resources that the local and federal governments have neglected to provide.
“I focused primarily on hurricanes in Puerto Rico because Puerto Rico has a lot of hurricanes. I talked about how there was little government support for resolutions after the hurricanes and relief and how a lot of it was done on the part of Puerto Ricans and how there was corruption but also resistance in that,” said Morales.
Though Morales has roots in Puerto Rico, her topic came to fruition when she participated in a Learning in the World program entitled “Bomba: Musical Expression of Puerto Rico’s Heritage.” During the program, Morales and her advisor, Mark Cutler, Instructor in Spanish and Director of Learning in the World, visited an organization called “Casa Pueblo.” Their visit inspired them to start the presentation, as her topic had a connection both to Puerto Rico and her.
“A big part of [Puerto Rico’s] culture and history is based on the hurricanes and based on resistance and resilience… There were a lot of inspiring things on that trip, and I feel like it’s an issue close to home. A lot of my family is [in Puerto Rico]. I don’t live in Puerto Rico, and it made me think of how privileged I am to not be experiencing the hurricanes and fear for my life every time it’s hurricane season. [So, it make me think about] what I can do to bring awareness,” said Morales.
Morales’s work as a Sustainability Scholar consisted of writing a paper over the summer and creating a presentation during the school year. Cutler noted that although he supported Morales with sifting through resources, Morales took on the primary role in creating the project. He also spoke about the final stretch of creating the presentation and how various other people supported Morales’s endeavors.
“Even in the fall, she had the backbone of the presentation that she put out. Then we talked about [it]; we went through various iterations of it, and finally, a week before she presented, she had more or less the final presentation ready to go. She came to dinner in [Paresky] Commons, and my wife, who’s an environmental scientist, was able to listen to her presentation and see the slides… I know she actually relied on a lot of peers. She had one peer in particular who gave a lot of feedback, which was really helpful,” said Cutler.
Many attendees appreciated the presentation’s interdisciplinarity and how it linked climate change to social issues, governing, and history. One particular focus was the ways in which local organizations try to fill the gap that large governmental entities create. Lisa de Boer ’26 spoke on Morales’s solution of decentralizing energy.
“One thing that I found very interesting was that one of the solutions she presented of how we can help ameliorate this [issue] was supporting grassroots organizing and grassroots energy. Decentralizing energy so that there isn’t one company that has a monopoly over the energy of Puerto Rico, but splitting that up into regions, so that everybody who’s paying for [and] everyone who’s profiting from energy actually has a stake in what is going on,” said de Boer.
Another focus of the presentation was the corruption present in Puerto Rico’s local governments and how it affects the people. One particular example Morales provided was United States aid to Puerto Rico being left undistributed, forcing Puerto Ricans to break into a warehouse to retrieve the resources. Suhaila Cotton ’24 described how that example taught her the importance of local action and paying attention to local governance.
“Talking about the warehouse issue, the federal government gave the supplies [and] gave the money for resources and disaster relief. But because the local government failed, because of the governor, that wasn’t executed correctly. It goes to show, especially with this being an election year, we can get so focused on the federal government, but we can’t forget about the impact our local government has as well,” said Cotton.
